Old Software Was Fast Because It Had No Choice
A few weeks ago we were discussing a Java component that starts a Spark cluster. Its job is mostly coordination. It starts the machinery, passes configuration around, waits for...
Engineering, Leadership, and Life
I write about software engineering, leadership, and the judgment built through messy systems, team decisions, mistakes, and curiosity beyond work.
Too Liked to Be Useful
I often get surprised when I hear someone say they like a certain manager. I usually have very different reservations about them in my head. The gap between what I think and wha...
Vibe Coder vs Software Engineer
More than a decade ago, I wrote about . At the time, I didn’t realize how deeply people had tied their professional identity to Java. My goal was to distinguish between someone...
When Code Is Cheap, Does Quality Still Matter?
The other day we were having a casual conversation on quality and looking at a few code examples. If you want serious engineering, you want your code to use a few principles lik...
Why Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Is a Masterpiece
I don’t know the last time I rated a movie 10 out of 10. I went to IMDb and found out it was in 2014. I’m more selective now when I watch movies, but that doesn’t change how goo...